Conventionally, there is commercially available an image sensing apparatus such as an electronic camera which records, plays back, and communicates still images or moving images using a memory card with a memory device as a recording medium. Such an apparatus reads out a charge signal from an image sensing element, A/D converts the signal, and executes image processing, thereby implementing distance measurement/photometry processing.
Instantaneity (strong in grabbing shutter chances, i.e., ready for photography whenever the user wants) and high quality photographed images (high exposure accuracy and focusing accuracy) are generally demanded for photography.
In a conventional image sensing apparatus, when the shutter is to be depressed (fully pressed) in photography, AF exposure control, AF control, exposure control, white balance control, and the like are executed after the shutter is pressed halfway. Then, the shutter is opened to execute photography. This causes a release time lag and causes a problem with instantaneity in photography.
A pre-emission operation in red-eye-effect relaxation processing is also known to impair the instantaneity. For example, Japanese Patent Laid Open No. 6 265987 proposes a camera which executes red-eye-effect relaxation processing in normal photography and skips red-eye-effect relaxation processing if the shutter depression speed is higher than a predetermined value.
There is also proposed a method of simplifying an arithmetic operation to increase the instantaneity and an image sensing apparatus in which the user can selectively set a speed (instantaneity) priority photography mode and a precision priority photography mode. This apparatus is manually set, and is not always set to a photography mode which meets the photography needs when the user actually executes photography. For this reason, in some cases, the user's intention does not coincide with the set photography mode. The mode needs to be confirmed before each photography operation, and this is cumbersome.